News:

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

Lee Camp is the host and head writer of the hit comedy news show “Redacted Tonight” on RT America. Lee is also the creator of the popular youtube show “Moment of Clarity” and author of the book of the same name, and a former contributor to the Onion and former humor writer for the Huffington Post.

Subject: Sign the petition! All U.S. Senators: BECOME A CO-SIGNER OF BERNIE SANDERS’S “FOR THE 99.8% ACT”

Body:

Friend,

I signed a petition on Action Network telling All U.S. Senators to BECOME A CO-SIGNER OF BERNIE SANDERS’S “FOR THE 99.8% ACT”.

Senator Sanders’ new bill does what the American people want by substantially increasing the estate tax on the wealthiest families in this country and significantly reducing wealth inequality. Over the past 40 years, there has been an enormous transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest people in America. The For the 99.8% Act could raise up to $2.2 trillion in taxes from the nation’s 588 billionaires. It exempts the first $3.5 million of an individual’s estate from the estate tax, so family farms and small businesses will not be affected. Just 0.2% of Americans will pay any estate tax. It establishes a top estate tax rate of 77% on estates valued above $1 billion ― a return to the top rate from 1941 through 1976. And, it closes loopholes that families like the Walton Family, the wealthiest family in America, use to avoid paying the estate tax. Stand with Senator Bernie Sanders and become a co-signer of the For the 99.8% Act to address wealth inequality and invest in our country’s future.

When Ivanka Trump recently went after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal by suggesting that the “idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want” because “people want to work for what they get,” it was difficult not to gag. Here was the recipient of a fortune inherited from a tax-dodging father waxing on about the American work ethic as if she had any idea about what most Americans want. This level of ignorance and hypocrisy was, of course, hardly surprising coming from a member of the Trump family.

Agelbert NOTE: As the article makes clear, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is NOT about "coddling the free riders", as Republican BULLSHIT ARTISTS will repeatedly and loudly (and boringly) claim.

Let me explain why the UBI is a FREEDOM ENHANCING program, not a "give away to lazy people".

When a criminal sets out to commit a crime (i.e. acts on a MOTIVE), he needs the MEANS and the OPPORTUNITY to get the felonious act accomplished successfully. Any detective can use the LACK of motive, means or opportunity as a logical reason to remove a suspect from the list of people suspected of committing a particular crime. Crime is an activity within a society that is illegal.

Activity that is legal, and worthy, and celebrated, and encouraged among good citizens in a society, such as working, taking care of your family, getting an education and obtaining adequate health care, also requires the MOTIVE, MEANS and OPPORTUNITY to accomplish successfully.

A slave may have the motive to purchase healthy food, seek medical attention for a health problem, or avoid sleeping in a roach infested shack, but without the BASIC economic MEANS to do so, he will NOT have the OPPORTUNITY to live a decent, though lacking any luxury whatsever, healthy life.

The CAPITALIST ideology firmly defends the concept of a "CAPTIVE" market. The reason for that is that said CAPITALIST can DICTATE the price for his product and make more money.

Now that people have been commodified by our CAPITALIST system, employees have become just another CAPTIVE market. IOW, the employer can DICTATE the wages he wishes to pay. It's not quite slavery because the worker does have the option to quit and partially starve on processed food SNAP CRAP until his health gives out, of course (If you do not see an ethical problem with this anti-democratic system, you must be a CAPITALIST).

What the UBI does is FREE the wage earner from being forced to work for a NON-LIVING wage. The UBI DE-commodifies the worker. The employee is no longer part of the CAPTIVE market. The employee has the FREEDOM to make real choices in education and in caring for his loved ones and in patiently choosing his favored profession without fear of going hungry or not being able to pay for health care and a roof over his head. The Employer can no longer hold the threat of penury over the employee's head and must, therefore, offer a living wage and a decent work environment.

A living wage and a decent work environment is precisely what the Trumps of this world DO NOT WANT. They KNOW that most people that hitherto remained in dead end jobs with no MEANS or OPPORTUNITY to better themselves will use the UBI do so. So, the CAPITALISTS deliberately conflate the UBI with a "give away". The part the CAPITALISTS will never mention is that their wailing and moaning about "socialist free riders" holds water ONLY if the UBI exceeded a BASIC INCOME. The UBI is NOT an "incentive to avoid work". The UBI is an incentive to BETTER one's quality of life through education and extra time to find the job that genuinely interests a person. Thus, the UBI benefits the entire society by REDUCING INEQUALITY.

CAPITALISTS do not want workers to have Universal Basic Income caused FREEDOM to have the MEANS or the OPPORTUNITY to better themselves and take better care of their families. CAPITALISTS want a CAPTIVE labor market. UBI eliminates that CAPITALIST travesty.

The Employers claim their "freedom" is being "trampled on". Coercing an employee to work for a NON-LIVING wage is not a "freedom", it's CAPTIVE market wage tyranny.

About The Jimmy Dore Show:#TheJimmyDoreShow is a hilarious and irreverent take on news, politics and culture featuring Jimmy Dore, a professional stand up comedian, author and podcaster. With over 5 million downloads on iTunes, the show is also broadcast on KPFK stations throughout the country. It is part of the Young Turks Network-- the largest online news show in the world.

ABOUT THE PROGRAMThe Thom Hartmann Program is the leading progressive political talk radio show for political news and comments about Government politics, be it Liberal or Conservative, plus special guests and callers

THIS WEEK'S TOPICS (w/timestamps):01:14 - Updates on the economics of immigration;06:33 - France's yellow vests join union-called general strike;08:34 - demonstrations against Sackler family's profiting from oxycontin;11:38 - and New York City Council considers giving priority to fast-food workers (majority) over employers (minority);14:18 - announcements.15:11 - SPECIAL TOPIC: A major discussion by Prof. Wolff on (1) successful strikes by Mexican workers and their collaboration with progressive new Mexican government, and (2) Trump/GOP's inheritance tax cut benefits richest, worsens US inequality of opportunity.

Agelbert NOTE: Despite this fellow's proclivity to use the "F" word, and despite his bias towards the "free market" Libertarian flawed greed based world view, he states, in this podcast, many hard truths (e.g. the stupidity of Bitcoin investments in the present imminent collapse situation) about those who labor under the view that the world economic system is not a total, unsustainable RACKET. It is. It became the power structure by guile 😈 and by FORCE 🦍. AND, it is kept in place by FORCE. He quotes Napoleon:

Quote

"The one thing you cannot do with a bayonet is sit on it."

IOW, when TPTB force is insufficient, as is inevitable, due to the irrefutable fact that MORE force is required every day to keep the masses "in line" due to MORE people being cruelly exploited and abused by the system every day, anarchy ensues.

The upper middle class, who now foolishly believe they have "prepped sufficiently", who reside closer to the angry masses, will be attacked without mercy before the really monied elite feel the wrath of the masses. The monied elite greedballs, despite their clever hiding place bunkers, will not escape the wrath of the angry masses.

Although this fellow incorrectly eschews (and demonizes ) Socialism, he understands that the current economic system, WORLDWIDE, is a RACKET that is destroying human society. Though he does not admit it, that RACKET destroying human society is CAPITALISM.

According to this fellow, those fine upstanding well heeled neighbors in the upper middle class neighborhoods, all across the small portion of well heeled America that still exists, ARE the FIRST folks that will forget every single promise they made to you and your family and your friends. Your NEIGHBORS, who too many people, particularly the well heeled, believe are true blue, same thinkin', "friends" will, in a collapse situation, weigh every single day what you have that they think they need, and will not hesitate to STOOP to "situational ethics" 🦍 as a "rational and reasonable" EXCUSE to kill you and take your stuff. I think he is right.

Quote

There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.

The ransom of a man's life are his riches: but the poor heareth not rebuke. -- Proverbs 13:7-8

ABOUT THE PROGRAMThe Thom Hartmann Program is the leading progressive political talk radio show for political news and comments about Government politics, be it Liberal or Conservative, plus special guests and callers

Jimmy should have held up the book. Fort 5 bucks a month Patreon fees he can send a lackey to Barnes and Nobel to get one. Could have called Uber (I kid about that). Or had a print shop make a poster of the picture I posted here. Jimmy gets fees from people watching so he needs to raise a boat or two. Or three. He could have splashed it up on the screen while he was talking. He has to have video software.

But enough bitching about Jimmy.

In …and forgive them their debts, renowned professor of economics, Michael Hudson – and one of the few who could see the 2008 financial crisis coming – takes us on an epic journey through the economies of ancient civilizations. For the past 40 years in conjunction with the Harvard Peabody Museum, he and his colleagues have documented the archeological record and history of debt, and how societies have dealt with (or failed to deal with) the proliferation of debts that cannot be paid. In the pages of …and forgive them their debts, readers will discover shocking historical truths about how debt played a central role in shaping ancient societies. Perhaps most striking of all is that – in a nearly complete consensus of Assyriologists & biblical scholars – the Bible is preoccupied with debt, not sin.

In all eras – from antiquity to the present – debts have tended to mount up faster than the ability of most debtors to pay. That is a basic mathematical fact: Economic growth is arithmetic and can’t keep up with the exponential growth of debt growing at compound interest.

The big economic question is – and has always been – what will happen if debts cannot be paid? Will there be a debt writedown in favor of debtors (as has been done for large corporations), or will creditors be allowed to foreclose (as is always done on personal debtors and mortgage-holders), leading to their political takeover of the assets of the economy – and the government’s public sector?

The problem of debt backlogs was created with the invention of interest-bearing loans in agrarian 3rd Millennium BC Mesopotamia. The remedy of record was the royal Clean Slate proclamation or Jubilee Year of debt forgiveness. These proclamations had three functions: (1) They restored financial balance by annulling the backlog of crop debts that had accrued; (2) they liberated indebted bondservants (and their families); and (3) they restored land tenure rights, enabling debtors to continue living productively on the land, pay taxes, and be available for military service and corvée labor.

Clean Slate debt cancellations (the Jubilee Year), used in Babylonia since Hammurabi’s dynasty, first appear in the Bible in Leviticus 25. Jesus’s first sermon announced that he had come to proclaim it. This message – more than other religious claims – is what threatened his enemies, and why he was put to death.

This interpretation has been all but expunged from our contemporary understanding of the phrase, “…and forgive them their debts,” in The Lord’s Prayer. It has been changed to “…and forgive them their trespasses (or sins),” depending on the particular Christian tradition that influenced the translation from the Greek opheilēma/opheiletēs (debts/debtors). On the contrary, debt repayment has become sanctified and mystified as a way of moralizing claims on borrowers, allowing creditor elites and oligarchs the leverage to take over societies and privatize their public assets, especially in hard times.

Historically, no monarchy or government has survived takeover by creditor elites and oligarchs (viz: Rome). In a time of increasing economic and political polarization, and a global economy deeper in debt than at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, …and forgive them their debts shows what individuals, governments, and societies can learn from the ancient past for restoring economic and social stability today.

Thank you, K-Dog.

The thing about that Jubilee year debt forgiveness in the Bible is interesting. Leviticus, of course, has all the details, including an admonition to not try to game the Jubilee on a indentured servant or slave that is about to be released. But, there is one thing Hudson did not mention. The Law, as given by Moses in the desert, and stated in Leviticus, was given right at the beginning of the wanderings through the desert when they were at that fateful place where they received (twice - the first time things didn't go too well) the 10 Commandments on stone tablets.

Everybody who was over 20 when the Hebrews got cold feet, due to the physical size of the Canaanites they were ordered to invade, was dead after 40 years (except Caleb Joshua and Moses). So, Moses read the Law all over again in Deuteronomy, where the Jubilee is also mentioned.

I don't think Jesus was put to death for the Jubilee Year thing. Remember that he taught the Lord's Prayer to his disciples in private. Whether interpreted as sins, debts or tresspasses, the issue there is a moral one that covers a lot more ground than physical debts. Also, J.C. made a point of telling fellow Jews that they had umpteen commandments that they were forcing people to follow, while they hypocritically did not follow them. He was not a happy camper about the over 400 plus religious rules the Jews had, although I'm certain He fully approved and celebrated the Jubilee concept, as the Lord's prayer evidences.

J.C. harped on the "Love thy neighbor as thyself" Command as IT, as far as following God's Law was concerned. He made a point of saying that since you cannot see God, because God is Spirit, saying you love and worship God is an empty claim unless this Love of God is evidenced by treating God's Creations, your fellow humans, with the same respect you have for yourself (in so many words).

The head honcho in the Sanedrin (High Priest) demanded that J.C. be put to death becasue J.C. said He was the Son of God, which was blasphemy for a Jew. Of course, that was the cover. The real reason was that most people were following J.C. around, getting healed of this and that, and getting lots of "strange ideas" about the proper behavior of a God fearing person. The Religious leaders were conncerned that, if this kept going on, especially after that huge crowd that followed J.C. (Palm Sunday), many hailing him as their King!, they would lose their easy money, their privileged position and their followers. So, they decided to get rid of the miracle worker by hook and by crook.

Isaiah Chapter 53 prophesied about J.C.'s death. J.C. did too, more than once. The bottom line for J.C. was that, as the Good Sheperd, He was obligated to lay down his life for his sheep (John 10:11, John 15:12-13).

Quote

John 10:11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

John 15:12-13 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Jimmy should have held up the book. Fort 5 bucks a month Patreon fees he can send a lackey to Barnes and Nobel to get one. Could have called Uber (I kid about that). Or had a print shop make a poster of the picture I posted here. Jimmy gets fees from people watching so he needs to raise a boat or two. Or three. He could have splashed it up on the screen while he was talking. He has to have video software.

But enough bitching about Jimmy.

In …and forgive them their debts, renowned professor of economics, Michael Hudson – and one of the few who could see the 2008 financial crisis coming – takes us on an epic journey through the economies of ancient civilizations. For the past 40 years in conjunction with the Harvard Peabody Museum, he and his colleagues have documented the archeological record and history of debt, and how societies have dealt with (or failed to deal with) the proliferation of debts that cannot be paid. In the pages of …and forgive them their debts, readers will discover shocking historical truths about how debt played a central role in shaping ancient societies. Perhaps most striking of all is that – in a nearly complete consensus of Assyriologists & biblical scholars – the Bible is preoccupied with debt, not sin.

In all eras – from antiquity to the present – debts have tended to mount up faster than the ability of most debtors to pay. That is a basic mathematical fact: Economic growth is arithmetic and can’t keep up with the exponential growth of debt growing at compound interest.

The big economic question is – and has always been – what will happen if debts cannot be paid? Will there be a debt writedown in favor of debtors (as has been done for large corporations), or will creditors be allowed to foreclose (as is always done on personal debtors and mortgage-holders), leading to their political takeover of the assets of the economy – and the government’s public sector?

The problem of debt backlogs was created with the invention of interest-bearing loans in agrarian 3rd Millennium BC Mesopotamia. The remedy of record was the royal Clean Slate proclamation or Jubilee Year of debt forgiveness. These proclamations had three functions: (1) They restored financial balance by annulling the backlog of crop debts that had accrued; (2) they liberated indebted bondservants (and their families); and (3) they restored land tenure rights, enabling debtors to continue living productively on the land, pay taxes, and be available for military service and corvée labor.

Clean Slate debt cancellations (the Jubilee Year), used in Babylonia since Hammurabi’s dynasty, first appear in the Bible in Leviticus 25. Jesus’s first sermon announced that he had come to proclaim it. This message – more than other religious claims – is what threatened his enemies, and why he was put to death.

This interpretation has been all but expunged from our contemporary understanding of the phrase, “…and forgive them their debts,” in The Lord’s Prayer. It has been changed to “…and forgive them their trespasses (or sins),” depending on the particular Christian tradition that influenced the translation from the Greek opheilēma/opheiletēs (debts/debtors). On the contrary, debt repayment has become sanctified and mystified as a way of moralizing claims on borrowers, allowing creditor elites and oligarchs the leverage to take over societies and privatize their public assets, especially in hard times.

Historically, no monarchy or government has survived takeover by creditor elites and oligarchs (viz: Rome). In a time of increasing economic and political polarization, and a global economy deeper in debt than at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, …and forgive them their debts shows what individuals, governments, and societies can learn from the ancient past for restoring economic and social stability today.

Thank you, K-Dog.

The thing about that Jubilee year debt forgiveness in the Bible is interesting. Leviticus, of course, has all the details, including an admonition to not try to game the Jubilee on a indentured servant or slave that is about to be released. But, there is one thing Hudson did not mention. The Law, as given by Moses in the desert, and stated in Leviticus, was given right at the beginning of the wanderings through the desert when they were at that fateful place where they received (twice - the first time things didn't go too well) the 10 Commandments on stone tablets.

Everybody who was over 20 when the Hebrews got cold feet, due to the physical size of the Canaanites they were ordered to invade, was dead after 40 years (except Caleb Joshua and Moses). So, Moses read the Law all over again in Deuteronomy, where the Jubilee is also mentioned.

I don't think Jesus was put to death for the Jubilee Year thing. Remember that he taught the Lord's Prayer to his disciples in private. Whether interpreted as sins, debts or tresspasses, the issue there is a moral one that covers a lot more ground than physical debts. Also, J.C. made a point of telling fellow Jews that they had umpteen commandments that they were forcing people to follow, while they hypocritically did not follow them. He was not a happy camper about the over 400 plus religious rules the Jews had, although I'm certain He fully approved and celebrated the Jubilee concept, as the Lord's prayer evidences.

J.C. harped on the "Love thy neighbor as thyself" Command as IT, as far as following God's Law was concerned. He made a point of saying that since you cannot see God, because God is Spirit, saying you love and worship God is an empty claim unless this Love of God is evidenced by treating God's Creations, your fellow humans, with the same respect you have for yourself (in so many words).

The head honcho in the Sanedrin (High Priest) demanded that J.C. be put to death becasue J.C. said He was the Son of God, which was blasphemy for a Jew. Of course, that was the cover. The real reason was that most people were following J.C. around, getting healed of this and that, and getting lots of "strange ideas" about the proper behavior of a God fearing person. The Religious leaders were conncerned that, if this kept going on, especially after that huge crowd that followed J.C. (Palm Sunday), many hailing him as their King!, they would lose their easy money, their privileged position and their followers. So, they decided to get rid of the miracle worker by hook and by crook.

Isaiah Chapter 53 prophesied about J.C.'s death. J.C. did too, more than once. The bottom line for J.C. was that, as the Good Sheperd, He was obligated to lay down his life for his sheep (John 10:11, John 15:12-13).

Quote

John 10:11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

John 15:12-13 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

He made a point of saying that since you cannot see God, because God is Spirit, saying you love and worship God is an empty claim unless this Love of God is evidenced by treating God's Creations, your fellow humans, with the same respect you have for yourself.

That is trick! (in the complementary sense). I like! I got very excited when I read a similar description which stated that the only way for God to be real is through the expression of love of fellow man. Beautiful stuff and I have a personal spin.

If you are God you get to be in low earth orbit anytime you want. You get to see everything as it really is without any bullshit. From the human point of view it is bullshit to think God cruising through the atmosphere up there where the air is clear and looking down is going to be pleased with dogfights.

War and conflict in any form which does not build to goodness lacks complexity, is boring and is of no interest to the most superior entity of all. Life is about growing and blossoming. Why else would you create the damn universe! If it was about destruction he/she would not have set things in motion in the first place. Life is about becoming and if God is cruising, conflict is of no interest to him/her. What could God possibly find interesting about conflict? It destroys.

Mommy/Daddy does not like fighting and it is not so hard to figure out. Mommy/Daddy wants a clean room and he/she wants to see everybody happily doing their homework. Taking care of each other. God sees that and it reflects on he/she and all is good. It is not so hard to figure this out. The fights do not amuse so if they don't, what does? Some people ask that question, some don't, but the question mark really is rhetorical since the answer is obvious. It was answered in my previous paragraph.

And once that question is answered other questions get natural easy answers. A concern with doom lies on the side of that which amuses he/she and that which is good. Concern about your future fellows. A good thing obviously. A no-brainer.